The Story of an A Online Writing Scam

The events in this article are true.  If the site I write about was the only one, then I’d have no issue in exposing them.  But the facts are so ‘universal’  that the pattern has become a ‘standard’.

WRITOID

Whether the first online writing scam was meant to be a scam from Day One or became a Scam depends on who you communicate with.

One will say he sort of knew from the beginning,  Five will say it never was a scam.  Two, Three and Four will give their own versions.  But the fact is, the Site was very good for a time.  Then, it implemented a number of Tricks to not pay their writers, to steal their work.  This went on until the FBI stepped in.

I’ll call the Perpetrator; Quack and the Site Writoid.

Beginning

Six people worked for an online publishing site. This site didn’t pay its contributors.  Quack saw how the writers were being ripped off as the advertisers were paying good money.  That money was going into the Owner’s pocket, and they, the workers, were getting pennies.

Quack investigated how he could start his own writing site and how he could pay those who worked for it.   One, Two, Three, Four and Five were his co-workers and they agreed with him, and decided to begin Writoid.

STEP ONE

Quack and his Five Friends did all the writing. Quack got the advertisers. They shared the coin for the first month.

As the site could be found with a Stumble or any search for ‘Online Writing Sites’,  a few outsiders joined.

STEP TWO

Quack copied the Terms of Service from another online writing site and set the pay based on ‘views’.   The money, in those days, was fairly good, and getting 1c for every 10 views was not exceptional.

As the site had very high standards it became sort of a reference. To get 1k hits a day on one item was shoulder shrug, because getting 10k hits a day was virtually standard.

STEP THREE

One to Five ran around the Internet touting Writoid.  Telling people not to waste time on Triond or Hubpages but to go there and they would get more money.  These people, One to Five were, at first, Promoters of the Site.  They would only solicit the best writers they could find.

To prevent poor writers from joining they had a ‘probation’ period.  They would let a not so good writer submit five unpaid items which they would moderate. If all five were of high standard, the applicant would be accepted.  If even one was not, the applicant would be refused.

This ‘barrier’ did not apply to good writers who were welcomed in and began earning from their first item.

STEP FIVE (the stumble)

Overtime, the Owner started to take more and more coin for his pocket.   He wound up unable to pay what he had promised.   Quack began a dishonest plot to steal work, earn from it, and bar the writer.

He did this by having the Best Writers dropped from Staff Writer to Writer and then to Member.  Members were not paid.

He would let a good writer post about 100 items for which he would pay as promised, then, drop them to Writer. When they complained or questioned, he would drop them to Member and confiscate their published items.

The items were there, gaining the same revenue today as they did yesterday.  The difference was that the person who wrote them, who had been dropped to Member would get 0.   And was virtually barred from the site so as to be unable to delete the articles.

STEP SIX (more stumbles)

Quack’s pals,  One to Five stopped being Promoters of the Site and became Shills.   Their new job was to attack those who dared complain while luring others to the site to experience the same kind of rip off.

Some newbies had their work marked as ‘Low Value’ so instead of getting 1c per 10 views they got 1c per 100 views.    Quack was still making the same money he made before from the items, he was just creating an excuse to pay the writers less.

Quack was making money from Writoid by ripping off writers and using those Five friends as pimps and shills and Judas goats, to bring more people to his site to be ripped off.

STEP SEVEN (hitting bottom)

Towards the last months of the existence of Writoid,  One quit.   He was followed by Two and Three, because they did not want to be part of what they realised was now a Scam.  Four and Five stayed until the day the site went down.

There were those who flocked message boards and fora and wrote articles on other writing sites about Writoid.

Then the FBI got Involved.

THE TAKE AWAY

Proto Scammers investigated how Quack had run his ‘business’ and decided to copy it.  Many wanted quick money so would claim to pay for articles, for comments, even for likes.     They did this because they know the writers were fairly stupid and didn’t know how the coin was made.

They’d start a site in March with a pile of plagiarised items of high quality using a pile of false nicks and proxy servers, and run around to other writing sites to invite members to join.

They’d attack anyone who dared question the payment or the methods,  and would lure more and more people in so as to show the advertisers how many views were obtained in a month.

The procedure was simple.

Pay everyone the first time the bill fell due.  Then pay only a few for their second redemption.  Attack anyone who claimed not to have been paid as having; “Broken the Rules!”

Shills, who knew perfectly well that the site was a scam would claim to be merely writers on the site and state how many times they were paid.

These liars knew how powerful their lies were. “I made $80 last month!”  Got more members and kept more fools quiet than anything else that could be posted.

And then… the site would disappear without a word.  Suddenly, there was no site.

A few weeks later the same folks would create another site, and go after the same fools that they had already ripped off, because they know that many people are just stupid.

The first five friends of Quack know exactly what happened, some are not sure how it happened.  But, Writoid became the Grandfather of the Writing Scam